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Setting priorities in biodiversity conservation: An exercise with students, recent graduates, and environmental managers in Brazil

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Abstract

Facing a global biodiversity conservation crisis, urgent decisions are needed but prioritization is challenging. We analyzed how students, recent graduates of Biology, Law, and Engineering, and environmental managers in Brazil ranked ten conservation actions. Reduction in habitat loss and in overexploitation, and in situ protection were consensual top priorities. Freshmen students have similar priorities, which change as their courses advance. Biologists, engineers, and lawyers agree about only two priorities, but not in a consensual order. Biologists gave little importance to financial resources; managers much higher, and lower to action plans. Flagship species and ex situ protection were least priorities for all. Prioritization was influenced by educational level and experience and some priorities are counterintuitive. Our study reinforces the need to assess inter-groups differences, so conservationists could anticipate tendencies of single group decisions. Gaps in the conservation-oriented education of potential decision-makers must be filled, so their decisions could be more effective.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Departamento de Zoologia, Centro de Biociências/Universidade Federal de Pernambuco for supporting our research on biodiversity conservation in Brazil. This manuscript is based on E.C.A.S’s Masters Thesis in Animal Biology at PPGBA/UFPE and we thank C.B. Valladares-Pádua, R.J. Ladle and P.M.S. Nunes for their valuable comments on the thesis. E.C.A.S. was supported by a grant from FACEPE, and E.B. is supported by a fellow grant from CNPq. Two anonymous reviewers provided valuable comments on this manuscript.

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  1. Departamento de Zoologia, Laboratório de Ciência Aplicada à Conservação da Biodiversidade, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Rua Nelson Chaves s/n Cidade Universitária, Recife, PE, 50670-901, Brazil

    Emanuelle Cordeiro Azevedo Souza & Enrico Bernard

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia Animal, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Rua Nelson Chaves s/n Cidade Universitária, Recife, PE, 50670-901, Brazil

    Emanuelle Cordeiro Azevedo Souza

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  1. Emanuelle Cordeiro Azevedo Souza
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Correspondence to Enrico Bernard.

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Souza, E.C.A., Bernard, E. Setting priorities in biodiversity conservation: An exercise with students, recent graduates, and environmental managers in Brazil. Ambio 48, 879–889 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1116-x

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